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Sunday, 17 March 2013

Rudolph Van Richten stats for ‘Castles & Crusades’

Here are some ‘Castles & Crusades’ stats for the character of Rudolph Van Richten (basically D&D’s answer to Van Helsing for their ‘Ravenloft’ setting) based on those given in Wizards of the Coast’s 3e material and ‘Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition Ravenloft Boxed Set Real of Terror Manual’.

2e had him as a 3rd level Thief and WotC made him Expert 5/ Rogue 5/ Scholar 5.

The reason why the 2e version of Van Richten had such a low level was
because level losses from undead attacks were permanent. (Someone
correct me if I’m wrong about this, I’m not extremely familiar with 2e.)
In any case, both in 3e and C&C, Restoration can take care
of that and I’m sure Van Richten was a resourceful enough person to
manage access to that spell via some contacts or allies.

Making him level 15 for C&C didn’t seem right though, since
characters in 3e level-up much faster than C&C and despite the
reason for his low level being gone, it felt drastic to give him such a
high-level in a game where the typical class chart ‘stops’ at 12.

I decided to take the difference in levels (despite that the Expert and Scholar
3e class and prestige class are not combat-centric) between the two
versions of the game ( 15 - 3 = 12 ) and averaged it by splitting that
difference in two ( 12 / 2 = 6 ). I then added that to his ‘minimum’
established level of 3, therefore 3 + 6 = 9.

This seems about right to me, it’d make him very skilled and Decipher Script
really fits with the character concept of the researching scholar who
hunts monsters, without making him a ‘combat monster’. (He is however
someone who combats monsters! O.k, sorry about that…)

His 2e stats were Str. 11 Dex. 16 Con. 10 Int. 17 Wis. 16 Cha. 13. I’d say his Primes are Dexterity, Intelligence and Wisdom.
He requires Dex to take the Rogue class but it also makes sense
story-wise that he’d be agile as a doctor performing his work and as an
adventurer. He’s also a wise and educated man, so Int and Wis are
obvious choices.

So, here are the stats I assign him for C&C. All of the text found below is from ‘Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition Ravenloft Boxed Set Realm of Terror Manual’.

Van
Richten always carries a holy symbol, a vial of holy water, a small
mirror, a silver dagger, and a wooden stake. When hunting prey, he
carries other appropriate items, too. He rarely faces an opponent in
direct combat, preferring to outwit the evil creatures and use their
inherent weaknesses against them.